Space, the final frontier. These are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise. Its continuing mission to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilization, to boldly go where no one has gone before… —Captain James T. Kirk

Space may have been the final frontier for the good Captain James T. Kirk, but as Captain of the MBIP Blog, my goals are somewhat less lofty. My voyages take me in and around Peoria, a riverfront town and last Wednesday while having lunch on the riverfront, I noticed one spot I’ve never gone inside of: Hooters. I’ve blogged on every other nightspot that sits along the riverfront here in Peoria and most of the stores and retail shops, but I’ve never set foot inside of Hooters.

The last time I was in a Hooters was when I lived in New York and I wrote a feature for the NY Post where I went out on the town as a “Bad Santa” and one of my stops was The Hooters in midtown Manhattan. Below are some photos from that Hooters excursion that took place about seven years ago. (Photos are by Liz Sullivan, who was a blast to work with, by the way. We had so much fun doing this story!)

This is the full page story that ran in the NY Post and The Hooters photo is smack dab in the middle of the page.

Here’s a couple more photos that weren’t used. I like the bottom photo the best and couldn’t figure out why the Post didn’t use that one for the story, but that’s just one of the many reasons I gave up on freelance writing, you have no control over the story once you turn it in. If you’d like to see more photos from this story, you can click right here. Anyway, that was my last trip to a Hooters bar and restaurant seven years ago. I’d say I’m overdue for a return trip, so let’s head on down to the riverfront and see what’s happening at Hooters here in Peoria on this splendid Thursday evening!

Hooters...the final riverfront frontier...oh okay, I’ll knock off this Star Trek crap, that was mainly just for the introduction anyway. Plus I don’t have a phaser or a room full of Tribbles, so what’s the point anyway?

Let’s go inside and see what’s going on in here...before we even get inside, it looks pretty orange in there! There’s a Trump-Obama joke lurking there in that last line, but I’m not going near it!

There’s a small gift shop that greets you as you first walk in the door. There’s beer and shot glasses, sweats and of course Hooters t-shirts. Note to any guys leaving here late and all full of beer—bringing home a Hooters t-shirt as an apology gift to your girlfriend or wife will not help matters any! Just a little advice here before we move along. Okay, let’s move along now...

I walked over to the entrance and met my first two Hooter women of the evening: Ciara and Nichole! They were pretty and really nice! I took the photo and then saw the bar over there in the distance, but before we go over there, let’s take a little tour of Hooters!

As you can see, there’s lots of big screen TV’s for sporting events, a jukebox and a couple dining areas with plenty of tables for seating. And let’s get the obllgatory Hooters joke out of the way, shall we? "As you can see, there’s lots of wood in here!” (Rimshot) Thank you, I’ll be here all week!

Here’s a shot from the other side of the dining room and there’s a bike floating from the ceiling in all its two-wheeled glory. One thing I noticed over here was a shelf full of Hooters Tomato Ketchup. This kind of mystified me and I wondered why in the world Hooters is in the ketchup business? Didn’t they learn a lesson from Hunts and all of those other ketchups that are obviously inferior to Heinz, the only ketchup you should be using? Well, let’s not obsess over this and make our way over to...

The bar! That’s Autumn behind the bar with an ice-cold bottle of Budweiser looking so very pretty! She asked if I wanted to get anything to eat and she told me the wings are popular in here, so I looked at a menu...

And there they are. Hooters is known for their wings and I was impressed with the number of different sauces they have for them, so I placed an order and there’s the fellow back in the kitchen preparing our order. I asked him to turn around but he didn’t do so. He’s either really concentrating or he’s pretending I don’t exist, I’m guessing the latter, but who knows? Let’s leave him to his chicken wing work!

Luckily there’s someone at the end of the bar who isn’t quite so camera shy—this is Cheryl and how cute is she? Sadly she’s also young enough to be my granddaughter, so I moved my attention over to the beer taps. They have nine of them! Okay, I’m still thinking about Cheryl, leave me alone!

Looks like it’s about wing time and Autumn placed some condiments nearby. Hooters makes hot sauce, which I kind of get because they’re known for chicken wings, but there’s that goddamn ketchup again! What in the world does ketchup have to do with Hooters? I really hate to get all Seinfeld on your ass, but who in the fuck are the ad wizards who thought of this? Sheesh!

Okay, enough obsessing over ketchup, here’s Autumn with the wings! I got the bacon-wrapped wings with Samurai Teriyaki sauce and they’re delicious! I’ve never had wings with bacon wrapped around them and once again they prove the age-old adage that bacon makes everything better!

And the final bones and napkins shot! Thanks to all the lovely women of Peoria’s Hooters for a fun and enjoyable evening! We’ll see you all tomorrow!